On Saturday 13th April we celebrated 21 years since the Club was founded with a Club day down at Old Whits. This was the first time that we had held an event like this. We welcomed back some ex-players to play in an intra-club game alongside some of the current players. Over 40 people attended on what turned out to be a lovely sunny day (well after the heavy shower had come and gone while we were all gathering before the game in the club house!). Quite a few of the ex-players took part in the game although a few decided to take refuge on the touch line and support both teams from there. A shout out must go to John Ferguson (the Fergo's Dad), who is Old Whits oldest player, who played at the tender age of 71!
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Both teams and some supporters pose for a photo before kick off.
Who is in the photo?
Back row: Farhan Rahman, Ashley Thomas, Geoff, Jonathan Higgins (Higgo), Joe Burns, Richard Sturdy, Paul McNamara, Marco Ghione, Bill Bliss, Jack Sealy, Peter Biggs, Bradley Hill, Vien Phan, Paul Johnson, Michael Tarlton, Matt Hilton, Dean Myers, John Mensah, Kenny Cobbett, Ani Okono, Lee Murphy
Front row: Gareth Leher, David Kent, John Maltby, Dan Lowe, Chris Clarke, Sean Barnett, Alex Prowse, James De Rosa, Richard Ferguson, Saagar Patel, John Ferguson, Mike Ferguson
Sean Barnet (the gaffer!) produced a great match day programme and had organised the players into two teams: The Red & Blacks captained by Club legend Michael Tarlton (414 caps and counting!) against The Blues captained by Higgo (a mere 287 caps and counting!). Matt Hilton kindly agreed to referee the match and did a very good impersonation of an 86 year old Alan Halfacre by not leaving the centre circle the entire match!
The match
The match started and the ex-players were soon running around as if they had not hung up their Old Whits boots several years ago. In fact Bradley Hill even went and bought a new pair just so he could play this match! Vien Phan in attach for the Red and Blacks was putting a lot of pressure on the Blues defence with his energetic running and Paul McNamara, for the Blues, was showing some sublime touches on the right of the middlefield. The Blues went ahead with a well worked goal, however the Reds struck back with two goals including a lovely long range effort from Brad. Some good football was played by both sides with Richard Sturdy reprising his role at left wing and Peter Biggs making a formiddable centre back partnership with Michael Tarlton for the Reds.
After 22 minutes both sides made changes to ensure that everyone would get at least 45 minutes on the pitch. It was at this point that the match changed complexion with the Blues going on a bit of a rampage with Dan Lowe and Ashley Thomas putting four goals passed the ever green Bill Bliss in the Reds Goal. Some of the forward play, especially from Dan, was quite outstanding. You can clearly understand why he has a goals to games ratio of 1.4 from 50 matches! The Reds were a bit shell shocked and went into half time needing a rowsing speech from their captain.
The second half commenced and the Reds were determined to try and get back into the match but found goal scoring opportunities difficult to come by. Despite Marco Ghione showing his silky skills in midfield and Biggsy roaving forward from centre back and taking a pot shot from 40 yards out (which ended up closer to the club house than the goal) the score remained 5-2 to the Blues. As the match progressed it was clear that players on both sides were starting to tire as mistakes were creeping into their games. By the end of the second half both sides had managed to score another goal leaving the final result as 6-3 to the Blues.
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After the match, everyone made their way back to the club house for a refreshment or two and some food. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the match and the social afterwards and the feeling was that we should make this an annual event. Hopefully next year we may be able to tempt out a few more ex-players to come along and show the current crop how to play football!
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